'What he did in 2016 was disgraceful': Pelosi calls on Biden to cancel debates with Trump over president's 'skullduggery'
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has publicly urged Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden not to debate Donald Trump this fall, saying the president's behaviour on-stage would simply be “an exercise in skullduggery.”
"Don't tell anyone I told you this—" Ms Pelosi said before a room of reporters and TV cameras during an on-the-record news conference, "[but] I don't think there should be any debates."
Ms Pelosi criticised the president for telling, by The Washington Post's latest count, tens of thousands of false or misleading statements during his three and a half year presidency.
"I do not think that the President of the United States has comported himself in a way that ... has any association with truth, evidence, data and facts. I wouldn't legitimize a conversation with him," the speaker said.
She acknowledged that the Biden campaign thinks differently, and that her position is not the official Democratic one.
Ms Pelosi, who has not spoken personally with Mr Trump in more than 10 months — during which time her chamber has impeached him, negotiated trillions of dollars in aid to fight the coronavirus pandemic, and held several high-profile oversight hearings on his administrative actions — pointed to the president's debate performances against Hillary Clinton in 2016 as evidence of his unworthy behaviour.
“What he did in 2016 was disgraceful, stalking Hillary Clinton like that. ... He will probably act in a way that is beneath the dignity of the presidency. He does that every day," Ms Pelosi said.
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